


justice has no place in this small town

by kuro49



Series: small town murder mystery 'verse [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Small Town, M/M, Multi, Murder Mystery, Pseudo-Incest, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-26 06:24:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14396193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuro49/pseuds/kuro49
Summary: Like the narrators in all the great murder mysteries, Tim makes that turn in the heavy rain of this summer storm and it is a long winding road that twists deep into the dark. Gotham was never even meant to be a pitstop for gas but here he is.





	justice has no place in this small town

**Author's Note:**

  * For [atomeek](https://archiveofourown.org/users/atomeek/gifts).



> idk if i entirely succeeded but small town murder mysteries are always great even if this is most likely not. happy burfday, gams!!!! <3

 

i. through the guardrail of conscience and into the abyss

 

Like the narrators in all the great murder mysteries, the narrative ought to start like this:

There are the paths he can take, there is the one that he does, and here is the one that derails everything that comes after. Gotham was never even meant to be a pitstop for gas but here he is, on the outskirts of this town when the battery light blinks on to join the engine light that has been guiding Tim for the past eleven miles of his journey like a beacon on the shores of a rough, rough sea.

He makes that turn in the heavy rain of this summer storm and it is a long winding road that twists deep.

The lightning cuts through the dark for a fraction of a second, he follows it like a siren call.

 

“You look helpless.”

The door slams shut, Tim watches the man call out to him as he approaches in the downpour. Backlit by the bright headlights of the tow truck, the faded lettering of _Gotham Garage_ along the side of it, the man could almost pass for an ominous conjuring coming out of the woods.

“I look like I need help.” Tim says in correction, texting a short thanks to Stephanie for finding a towing service for him this late at night.

“Is there a difference?”

The man that walks up to him is tall, is broad, has dark hair and a curious streak of white cutting through all that. He introduces himself as Jason, owner of Gotham Garage and the subsequent truck that came out here for him. Tim isn’t looking but he finds it nonetheless when he smiles in answer.

“I sure hope so.”

They follow the single road leading into town.

“A mile or so and you could’ve made it to my place all on your own.”

They drive by a hazy neon sign reading _No Vacancy_ and a motel hidden in the dark just beyond that.

“Luck is not really on my side tonight.” Tim answers, recalling the way his dashboard lit up like a Christmas tree just before his battery quit on him too and the dread that settles into his bones like a sharp, hard blow to the solar plexus.

“Nah,” Jason tells him with a grin that is all teeth, “you have enough good karma if you still have me on your side.”

They turn at a diner named _Dirty Dash_ with its open sign still blinking red and yellow.

There is no pressing need for conversation, but it is comfortable when the windshield wipers drag loudly and Jason asks. “You’re passing through?”

Tim thinks on the drive across state lines that he makes. This making it his third year in a row when classes draw to an end and he runs out of excuses that keep him from his childhood home (not that his father asks, not that his mother calls, not that there isn’t obligation all the same). “Didn’t plan to stop at all.”

“Nobody really plans to come to Gotham but here you are.” Jason says like this is how it goes.

Maybe it is cosmic intervention, maybe it is a streak of bad luck, maybe it is a hand at his ankle dragging him down. They drive until they run out of asphalt, the garage pulling them in from the rain.

“Here we are.”

They draw to a halt.

 

On the other side of town, it is macabre.

The fear is palpable, and it comes from both sides.

Dick is on his knees, the fabric of his uniform soaking in the rain that falls and the red pooling at his feet. The thick stench of all that blood has him swallowing back the bile that makes his gut churn. He is reacting on his training when he keeps his hands to the open slash of the man’s throat to maintain pressure, slow the flow that does not stop.

Officer Richard Grayson is first on the scene, his actions do not change a thing.

Jonathan Crane still dies.

 

 

ii. under mysterious circumstances, tragedy strikes thrice

 

Dick Grayson is out of his uniform and Jason Todd has an hour or two before he has to get into his and open up shop. The garage is not so empty that their words echo but it feels hollow with a stranger asleep in the back office. This is the conversation that goes unheard.

“I’m not going to tell you that you did everything you could.” _I’m not them_ , Jason doesn’t say. “I know you’ve got yourself convinced that you can always be doing more.”

The smile is self-deprecating, and there is more than enough room for disappointment. “You think way too much of me, little wing.”

“That’s because I know you better than anyone else, Dick.” He says his name in that way he does, the insult worn into that single syllable. It is how he knows Dick will always come to him like this, in the aftermath of tragedy and helplessness, and seek out comfort he doesn’t know how to give.

“That doesn’t sound like a good thing.”

“Dickiebird,” Jason sighs, running a hand through his hair in defeat, “that’s hardly the worst thing between us.”

The insult goes fond in a way it never should have.

 

In a strange bed, in a strange place, with a stranger (make that two) speaking in whispers in the next room, it is disorientating to wake up.

Tim lays there, rubbing sleep from his eyes and thinking on that last memory before exhaustion took over the night before. He remembers Jason telling him this: _It’s not much but you’re welcome to take the cot in the garage_. If Stephanie could see him now, the culmination of his decisions last night and Jason’s offer that he took with a near breathless little _thank you_ , she would be surprised he woke up at all.

“—picked up your favorites.”

“West doesn't ask why you order for two anymore?"

There is a laugh, "he thinks I just eat that much."

They both look to him as he shuffles outside of the narrow office in the back of the garage where Jason keeps the cot tucked into the corner. He is in last night’s tee except it is wrinkled beyond recognition and his mother would be appalled if she looked at him at all.

Tim lifts a hand in greeting, smile hesitant at the pair of them standing close enough to touch.

“I didn’t know you had company.”

There is quirk of surprise and a kind of warmth in that simple sentence that Tim isn’t quite used to in reference to himself.

“Customer really,” Jason says tipping his head to one of the three cars sitting in his garage, “but sure, let Tim join the team.”

“What team?” Tim feels like he is missing something and it is not his spleen. He is an outsider here even if they are looking at him like they have known him all his life.

“I’m Dick.”

Tim doesn’t want to say the man is easy but he looks like ease. The line of his spine stands straight but he is welcoming, bright smile over his face, dark hair, blue eyes, looking like the poster boy of every good thing really.

“Golden boy here is the town’s very own shining police force.” Jason adds as he begins pulling out takeout boxes from the large plastic bag sitting on top of a work table. Dick rolls his eyes at that before waving him closer to them.

“Tim looks too smart to keep company of your caliber, Jay.”

“Jay.” Tim says, and maybe it is not his place but this whole town is not supposed to happen either.

“It’s short for Jaybird.” Dick answers just as Jason tells him _it is not_. But there is not a hint of malice, just exasperation like this is an argument he’s lost a long time ago (Tim is right even if he doesn’t know).

“Have breakfast.” Jason tells him instead, thrusting one opened container at him, the bacon is extra crispy, the egg is done sunny side up, and the sausages are dripping with oil.

Tim tries to push it away, and he really isn’t lying at all given all the times he powered through an entire school day on a large coffee or five. “I can just have coffee.”

“What are you, a baby bird?” Jason says, disapproval in the way his brows furrow at that. “Eat a piece of toast at least.”

Dick laughs loudly to the sight of the corner of a slice of buttered toast shoved between Tim’s mouth. Jason easily brushes the crumbs from his fingers on the hem of his grease stained tank, his own smirk barely bitten back. Dick drinks from the same cup of coffee Jason has for himself, Jason takes wedge after wedge of potato from the takeout container lid that Dick is using as a plate, and Tim is standing between them close enough to have their shoulders bumping as they reach out for the next bite.

 

 

iii. to do all the wrong things for all the wrong people

 

During the day and out of the rain, the town of Gotham looks a little bit different than how Tim imagined she would look. For one, there are far more gargoyles than expected.

Jason gives him a quote and tells him he has a rush order to handle before he can get a start on Tim’s own vehicle, and it is all such a convenient excuse for him to take with both hands. Tim knows himself well enough to know the anxiety and the guilt that will come subsequent to a decision like this because it always does. Tim also knows he wants to lose a couple of days to this town even with the convicting swing that will knock the breath from his gut. 

Dick walks him to Manor Motel and somehow talks a room out of the old man at the counter even with the _No Vacancy_ sign still flashing red outside in the dim cloudy morning. Tim would ask him for his secret if Dick isn’t already explaining on his own accord.

“Bruce owns the place,” Dick tells him, leading him across the parking lot to the adjacent building where the doors are neatly painted in a nauseatingly light sea foam green. “He always keeps a room or two empty.”

“Bruce?”

“My adopted father. Bruce, uh, let’s just say he’s a bit of a household name in this town. It’s hard to get away from it even if I do take advantage sometimes.” Dick says, holding up the motel key with a sheepish grin.

Tim ducks his head a little, soft in his admission, “I know how that can feel.”

Dick is an endless supply of sunny smiles, but it feels particularly radiating when he turns to him with something akin to empathy even with the Drake name a heavy one on his best days.

 

The man has a long sharp nose and a longer sharper gash that runs from sternum to his gut.

This is three months prior and two streets over.

When the umbrella falls from his grasp, he goes stumbling back, there could have been a shout, a scream, a hoarse cry of anything really but he goes down, silent and sure. Oswald Cobblepot dies bleeding out in the heart of Gotham.

 

The newspaper he finds on the counter of the diner Dick takes him to is eye-catching to say the least. The two of them are sitting in a booth by the door, waiting for their order of milkshakes to be ready. Tim pulls the article to him and reads about the death of Jonathan Crane.

“I was there.” Dick tells him, looking at the _Gotham Gazette_ upside down. “Found him during my patrol last night. I was first on the scene, he wasn’t even cold yet.”

“Dick, are—” Tim starts but stops himself when a man with red hair comes up to them with a broad grin. Dick’s expression fades from existence and it is like Tim imagined it when there is only another bright sunny smile in its place.

“There’s my favorite boy in blue.”

“Don’t tell me it’s on the house again, Wally.” Dick says to him as he takes the carryout tray from Wally’s hands.

“After the night you’ve had, I think it’s the least I can do.”

Nobody gets away from the talk of the town. Dick doesn’t have to like it to endure it and he makes that clear when he makes a face like he wishes this is the one thing they don’t have to talk about.

Tim doesn't step back but it is easy for him to dip his head in a nod to the man Dick calls Wally. It is an introduction as good as any other.

"Dick." Wally glances curiously to Tim but keeps his silence when Dick takes one of the milkshakes and hands the other two still in the tray to Tim, trades him for the newspaper in his hands still. He stops himself then starts again like he is trying to find the right thing to say. "You know you did everything you could. You can't save everyone."

“I know that objectively, it just guts me that I can’t change a thing."

Wally sighs, a fair amount of defeat to the way the air rushes out of him. “If it makes a difference, I’ll take your money just this time, Grayson.”

Dick flashes a grin at him before he is rustling for the money but there are also cash and receipts and coupons all jammed into one worn leather wallet, and the sight of it is enough to have Wally taking pity before he is plucking a single five-dollar bill from the mess.

“Let’s get you going, don’t you have a shift in less than an hour?”

Dick frowns at the five Wally takes but he is also glancing at his watch. “You really run a business here, West?”

“Just _go_ already.”

Dick relents, turning to Tim with a renewed smile and a nod to the two milkshakes sitting in the tray. “Keep Jay company for me?”

Tim nods, a slip of a quick _of course_ like it is the most natural thing, and then Dick is gone in a rush. Tim almost puts down his own five-dollar bill if Wally isn’t already shaking his head at him like he expects _better_.

“Huh, so he’s still with Jason?”

He isn’t entirely sure how stupid this question of his is. Tim’s never lived in a small town of this scale, maybe everyone really does know everyone else. “You know Jason too?”

Wally looks at him like he is seeing him for the first time all over again.

“Even if their last names aren’t Wayne, this town doesn’t just forget any of Bruce’s kids.”

 

Tim doesn’t consider himself a detective even if he reads people like a sleuth.

He knows how he sounds when he admits to studying journalism because he believes in finding the truth. He has always had a good head for puzzles and mysteries and the whodunit. Maybe, in another life time, he could make something of this beyond just being Timothy Drake.

There is something off here and he intends to place a finger on it even if it is just curiosity that drives him to it.

“Someone died last night.”

Jason stands up straight from where he has both hands buried inside the gut of a vehicle that is pointedly not Tim’s. Jason wipes the engine grease from his hands on a stained rag, stretches out the kinks in his back with a deep, long groan that has Tim glancing away before it settles safely somewhere over the yonder that is Jason’s shoulders.

“People die everyday, Tim.”

He doesn’t look all that surprised that Tim is back. Then again, the town is only so big.

“That is not wrong, but…” Tim deliberately trails off with a noisy slurp of his chocolate milkshake ( _the Dirty Dash serves the_ _best shakes in town_ , Dick boasts to him, Tim doesn’t comment on the fact that this is also probably the only place that sells milkshake here).

“You have questions.” Jason says with something like exasperation heavy in that low rasp of his voice. Tim only grins at him. “And you think I’ve got your answers.”

“Am I wrong?” Tim asks, pushing the vanilla milkshake across the work table as an offering to him. “Dick said vanilla’s your favorite.”

“Plying me with food is cheating.” Jason says pointedly even as he bypasses his pack of smokes to take the drink in hand instead.

“I’m not above playing dirty.”

School has done a number on him, his laptop might be low on battery but he can get just as much done. Tim brandishes his phone at Jason, shows off the digging he’s done and all that dirt under his fingernails, information easily goes beyond a simple front-page coverage of the _Gotham Gazette_.

“What are you looking to gain from this, baby bird?”

“You are not going to drop that, are you?” Tim frowns a little at that nickname and how well it sticks.

“What, ‘baby bird’?” Jason asks, a laugh to the way his tongue wraps around those two words. He shakes his head, bites the straw into his mouth and takes a loud sip to match Tim before continuing. “Not even if you drop this.”

“Dick thinks I should.”

Jason scoffs at him and finally goes for a cigarette, giving up all pretenses. “Dick thinks he can save everyone in this town.”

Tim thinks there is far more to that simple sentence than Jason makes it appear so but he is not here for that, not yet any way.

“I am not from here.”

“You think that matters to him?”

“It doesn’t really matter what I think, I am not a part of any of this.” _I just want to do some good while I can_ , Tim doesn’t share with the class. There has to be something to a clear conscience here.

“The Grayson of Gotham cares about you, he has you under his wing, you are his baby bird too.” Jason tells him, lighting up. Tim Drake could be the perfect candidate, he is a clean slate without the history of this town or the knowledge that goes beyond the white picket fences and the closed doors of the main street store fronts. It makes it possible for him to bypass the bias but people change, Jason knows this for a fact. “You are already a part of this.”

The smoke he breathes out dissipates, the nicotine rendering the sweet vanilla moot.

 

_so they are brothers?_

_adopted as far as the grapevines tell me_

 

_do they look like brothers?_

_i could pass for their brother, steph!!_

 

_kinky_

_black hair, blue eyes aren’t that hard to come by_

 

 _but a good laid is and we both know you need it, timmy_  

 

 

iv. i think i want to let you ruin my day

 

Here is a plan he does not make, taking bravery he doesn’t have.

On a summer night like this where the cicadas drown out most of the noises, the storm from two days ago almost feels like the start of a very long dream. He is in the loft above the Gotham Garage, and there are several things happening in tandem of each other.

Tim lets out on a low appreciative hum at the press of Jason’s mouth to his throat, all tongue and teeth to have the mark he makes stay.

“Months apart.”

At Tim’s words though, Jason stops entirely and pulls back just far enough to fix him with a steady stare. “How much success have you had with this kind of foreplay?”

Tim is pinned to the couch with Jason’s thighs on either side of him as he straddles his lap. Jason has him sighing out with want at the drag of his calloused hands underneath his shirt but Tim also cannot quite let go of this the further he digs. “They died months apart, Jason. Found all across town and no prominent connections to each other.”

Jason sighs, the sound of the shower still running. They have Dick’s uniform draped a seat away and just out of reach.

“You want to know the secrets about this place?”

Tim isn’t sure what his answer should be when Jason is asking him this in all seriousness. He answers in that way that gets him laughed at in the first-year lectures that asks him why he is here instead of every other major he could choose in his fancy Ivy league school. “I want to know the truth.”

“You’re looking at it.” Jason doesn’t laugh at him.

“I don’t understand.” Tim tells him pointedly, he doesn’t want to be shown around every secret there is here.

“That’s the point, you’re not supposed to.” Jason pushes his hand into Tim’s hair, brushes it back and glances to the closed bathroom door and the sound of the water still running before he continues. “Same way Dick and I aren’t supposed to be.”

“Together?”

“I was going to say fucking but sure, you can call it that if you want. That’s what Dickie calls it too.” Jason grinds down, makes them both groan, has Tim digging his fingers harder into Jason’s hips with the motion. Jason almost looks apologetic when he steels himself to continue. “Don’t let us drag you any deeper.”

Tim looks at him, at the hard line Jason holds himself into and the way his mouth opens, soft and warm and pliant. Tim tips his head back to welcome another kiss with ease.

“No promises.”

Dick is still dripping from his shower when he joins them, the steam curling from his skin, the heat trailing everywhere he touches, and he is dragging his hands everywhere he can. If Tim thought he was quite the sight in his uniform when he comes back after his shift, he is something else now.

“I thought we agreed to wait for me.”

“Took too long, Dickie.” Jason says even as he pushes back to plaster the line of his spine against Dick’s chest, the threadbare tank on him soaking up the water from his skin. “We got impatient.”

“Fair enough,” Dick leans his head down and brushes his mouth against Jason’s temple. Tim tilts his cheek into the palm Dick reaches out to him, and then he is breathing out into the scant spaces between them, “but fuck, you two look really good together.” 

 

If there is any linear path to take with this, here is probably where it starts. Eight months earlier, in an abandoned warehouse just on the edge of town, Jack Napier dies choking on his own blood.

The red makes a stark line that extends the curve of his mouth.

Before that, thumbs press down on the soft column of his neck, pulse in those hands, the tip of the man’s head back, giving up. Like all the great crime shows, it is always the first murder that says the most about a killer.

It is almost always a serial killer too.

 

“You really shouldn’t stay.”

Jason admits to him in the early morning, his second cigarette burning down to a stub.

“Already want to get rid of me?” Tim asks with a yawn, the sheets are worn soft unlike the starchy ones at the motel, and he deliberately doesn’t think about how much he wants to stay in this loft even if the heavy humidity before another impending thunder storm has the air still and stale around them.

“It’s not safe.”

“If it’s the town you want to protect me from, I’ll go.” Tim turns on his side, his body aches to curl into the warmth left over from where Dick was before he was called in to work barely an hour ago. The skies outside are dark, he thinks he can close his eyes and have lightning flashing against his eyelids. “But I don’t think you are saying that at all.”

“…You know.” Jason murmurs, quieter in this admission.

Tim watches as Jason scrubs a hand across his face, and there is more than just a lingering amount of relief to it. “I have enough pieces to put it together.”

“And you haven’t ran yet?”

“I am still trying to decide.” Tim says, blinking back sleep from his eyes. “Dick doesn’t know that you know though.”

Jason lets out a soft exhale before he is turning to Tim, catching his gaze to say:

“Baby bird, I want to keep him in the dark forever if I could.”

 

The town gets under his skin, like a slow crawl.

He doesn’t know what it is, maybe it is the water, maybe it is something in the air but he doesn’t get away even if he should. Whether he wants to is another matter all together, People always want what they should not have, that is nothing new.

Jason has made his decision a long time ago. Tim is making his now.

This is what it means to live with knowing.

 

 

v. like every bad idea, count me in please

 

Their confrontation was always going to go like this:

“Playing hero is not a good look on you.”

Dick looks to Jason and there is fraction of a second where Jason can see how Dick understands those words for how he means them to be understood because the golden boy has always been far smarter than anyone else wants to give him credit for. The world isn’t made fair, and yes, Richard Grayson really is both that pretty and _that_ competent.

“I didn’t do it entirely for you if that helps, Jay.”

That night plays in his head some days. The rain hitting the ground in every memory he has of it. He takes Jack Napier down with a brutality he didn’t know he was capable of.

When the rain starts to pour, the body goes still and the motion that follows to start the chest compressions is mechanical. This is how he is found.

“It doesn’t."

He’s got a hero complex far greater than the size of this town. It is not the blood on his hands or the final stillness of death that takes over to settle. Dick faults himself the first time he takes a life. No one else does. It is what he hears, in the aftermath, _you did everything you could._

This is what gets under his skin and takes root.

 

When no one comes forward and there is no body, there is nothing to be brought to justice.

Their confrontation goes both ways.

Given what he has done and what he will do again, there are plenty of other things that he ought to apologize for but this obligation Jason holds to him is what makes him ache. Thinking now, maybe this is what gives him away to start with.

“I’m sorry.”

Dick never meant for Jason to have to keep his secret too.

“I’m not mad.” Jason answers, reaching out, brushing the dark hair from Dick’s forehead, tracing the barely-there scar from a nasty fall that came before he did.

“That doesn’t help, little wing.”

“It should.”

 _Retribution_ , Dick doesn’t say, fully aware of every bad thing that he deserves coming to him. He finds himself anticipating punishment of this kind even if it will never come to him from Jason.

 

“I was never going to tell.”

The secrets in this town run deep and dark without any means of escape, what gets out never really lasts long. There is no intention, not even a single idealization to run. Even when it is just the two of them with a missing third in this nest of their bed, this is the part of the confrontation they never say out loud.

“I know.”

 

The path that Tim takes takes him out of Gotham.

He makes the drive to Janet and Jack and spends the summer there in his childhood home just as they intend for him. He dresses up in the tailored suit his mother picks out and follows his father to every work function he has on the schedule, it is a very packed one. He shakes the hands of all the right people and talks shop until his jaw is sore from keeping up with this smile.

It reinforces just how much he dislikes what his parents have planned for him for the rest of his life when he is sitting there at the dinner table every night with the stifling silence tying a slow noose around his throat.

Even if they do not ask, Tim tells them all the same.

He leaves two weeks prior to the initial plans.

It feels like another storm with plans to finish out the summer when the thunder finally stops and the skies are dark. The rain is now a drizzle and this would all be very familiar if not for the very different light this is all shrouded in.

The white picket fences look grey with the clouds settling heavy over the rows of picturesque houses just beyond. There is no wrecked car battery or shoddy engine light when he makes the drive this time but the siren call is all the same, he will brave the rough seas to end up here.

He draws close to the intersection Dick texts him almost an hour ago. The sight of the town is very much the same even if he is not familiar with this particular street but as far as he is concerned, every gargoyle he passed by have their stone eyes trained on him.

Tim pulls up as close as he can to the barricade of police cruisers and the line of yellow tape drawn to secure the scene and the scene of the crime is still buzzing with energy.

“Take it easy.” One of sergeants calls out to Dick as he makes his way out of the small crowd of police personnel, giving him a hearty pat on the back that makes the silver foil of the emergency blanket Dick has pulled around his shoulders crinkle.

"Rough night?" Tim leans across the passenger seat and unlocks the car door, asking as Dick ducks in from the rain.

"You could say that." Dick answers with a wane smile, dragging him across the short distance of the gear shift between them as soon as he has the door slamming close. The rain streaks the tinted window, hiding them from view. He kisses him with an opened mouth, long and hard, reaching out to run a hand through Tim's hair before resting it against his cheek to his jaw to fall against the side of his neck. “But it's all good now."

His fingers curl, his thumb presses against the hollow of his throat. Tim turns into it.

"I'm glad to hear that."

The night is long, is dark, is like every other night in this town with the streets wet with rain. They follow the single road leading right through town.

The newspaper left out on the kitchen table the next morning will run a very similar headline to all those he has read before. It is barely minutes too late when the body is found by the police, the skin is hardly even cold to the touch yet, and doesn’t that feel a lot like how it always goes? It is a pattern that goes unnoticed time and time again.

Tim takes that same path, he comes back to this small town of Gotham like he’s ever had a choice in leaving any of this behind.

 


End file.
